Arbeitspapier

The origins of the institutions of marriage

Standard economic theories of household formation predict the rise of institutionalized polygyny in response to increased resource inequality among men. We propose a theory, within the framework of a matching model of marriage, in which, in some cases, institutionalized monogamy prevails, even when resources are unequally distributed, as a result of agricultural externalities that increase the presence of pair-bonding hormones. Within marriage, hormone levels contribute to the formation of the marital pair bond, the strength of which determines a man's willingness to invest in his wife's children. These pair bonds are reinforced through physical contact between the man and his wife and can be amplified by externalities produced by certain production technologies. Both the presence of additional wives and the absence of these externalities reduce the strength of the marital bond and, where the fitness of a child is increasing in paternal investment, reduce a woman's expected lifetime fertility. Multiple equilibria in terms of the dominant form of marriage (for example, polygyny or monogamy) are possible, if the surplus to a match is a function of reproductive success as well as material income. Using evidence from the Standard Cross Cultural Sample and Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas, we find that agricultural production externalities that affect neurological pair-bonding incentives significantly reduce the tendency to polygyny, even when resource inequality is present.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Queen's Economics Department Working Paper ; No. 1180

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or Comparative
Institutions and Growth
Thema
Oxytocin
Vasopressin
Neurohormones
Marriage
Monogamy
Polygamy
Development of Institutions
Family structure
Ehe
Dauer
Vermögensverteilung
Biologie
Theorie

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Adshade, Marina E.
Kaiser, Brooks A.
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Queen's University, Department of Economics
(wo)
Kingston (Ontario)
(wann)
2008

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:46 MEZ

Datenpartner

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Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Adshade, Marina E.
  • Kaiser, Brooks A.
  • Queen's University, Department of Economics

Entstanden

  • 2008

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